#start static

It's the way that he makes you feel

It's the way that he kisses you

stuck in america // sugarcult

Remember these guys?

They just ‘liked’ my three month old tweet regarding 'First Band You Saw Live’.

Sixteen year old Luke would have been thrilled!

Who am I kidding, 32 year old Luke is just as excited.

Welcome to my latest batch of theme posts, this time focussing on my musical first love…pop punk.

It’s a topic I often bring up on my page so I decided to do a series of brief articles looking back on various albums from the golden age of the genre.

So if you’re nostalgic and old like me or just have a love for music of that era I hope you’ll enjoy reading this.

Feel free to join in with comments and thoughts!

First up…

Start Static by Sugarcult

Now the band Sugarcult will forever have a place in my heart for many reasons, primarily because they were the first band I ever saw live.

As they say, you never forget your first and I’ll certainly never forget that show.

I remember the gig was a sea of people wearing black and white checked belts, ties worn with t-shirts and ¾ length shorts. I experience my first ever mosh pit and the atmosphere was electric, I got the buzz and never looked back.

Start Static was released on Epitaph (Europe) back in 2001 and had three pretty epic singles in “Bouncing Off the Walls”, “Stuck In America” and “Pretty Girl (The Way)”.

All three singles in my opinion are still just as strong today as they were back then.  You’d be hard pressed to find many pop punk singles released in the last 10 years that is as downright catchy as “Stuck in America” or “Bouncing”.    

I first heard Sugarcult when I  stumbled across one of their videos on an old UK music channel called P-Rock TV that aired on Sky Digital back in the day. It’s a channel I’ve wrote about often and was a huge influence on me in my youth.

Whilst listening to Start Static you’re not going to hear a sound that’s particularly unique yet you can’t deny it’s quintessential pop-punk.  There’s heartache, aggression, drugs and a feeling of trying to escape which is the landscape of which all great albums of pop punk are written.

When people talk about the glory days of the genre in the early 00’s and the albums that defined it, this will be there.  

So does it still stand the test of time?  Well it’s been around 15 years since I first heard it and listening to the full album whilst writing this article I’d be heavily inclined to say “Hell yeah it does”.

A lot more than I expected if I’m honest.  There’s a lot of strong songs on the album other than the singles mentioned above such as “Daddy’s Little Defect” and “How Does it Feel” (love that song!) which prove the album isn’t just one or two strong singles and a whole lot of filler which is often the case of album around that time.

Start Static is a pop punk gem that is a little more raw and aggressive than the likes of The Starting Line or New Found Glory, thanks to the vocals of lead singer Tim Pagnotta.

The band followed up their debut with the 2004 release Palm Trees and Power Lines and then one more album entitled Lights Out which was released in 2006. 

It’s now been eleven years since the band have released any new material and have only played sporadic shows since 2009, with their most recent being a benefit show hosted by Stranger Things’ Finn Wolfhard entitled Stranger 80’s which took place in May of this year.

This album will forever be etched in my pop punk heart and if you any pop punk playlist without these guys on it, it’s really not worth listening to.

Start Static (2001) by Sugarcult